Ethics Quotes

Unethical Quote of the Week: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

“My understanding was that independent agencies exist because Congress has decided that some issues, some matters, some areas should be handled in this way by non-partisan experts, that Congress is saying that expertise matters — with respect to aspects of the economy, and transportation, and the various independent agencies that we have. So, having a president come in and fire all the scientists, and the doctors, and the economists, and the PhDs, and replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything, is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States.”

—-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, making the case for a technocracy that directly contradicts the structure of government dictated by that U.S. Constitution thingy, in her questioning of  U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer during this week’s oral argument in “United States v. Slaughter”.

As Professor Turley archly comments in his post on Jackson’s classically totalitarian belief that the proletariat can’t be trusted and must be guided by supposedly wise and beneficent “experts” (like her), “Jackson simply brushed aside the fact that the president is given authority to execute the laws and that the executive branch is established under the Constitution…The use of “real-world consequences” seems to overwhelm any true separation-of-powers protections for presidents against the administrative state. It also allows the Court to delve into effective policy or legislative impacts in support of the expert class over what are framed as ignorant or vengeful presidents.”

To state what should be obvious about the so-called “expert class,” they have proven themselves to be very partisan and therefore not sufficiently trustworthy for Congress to bestow on them “independence” from Presidential oversight within the Executive Branch. We have seen that experts like university professors and scholars are overwhelmingly biased and partisan, that scientists are biased and partisan, that doctors, lawyers, economists, psychologists, judges and, yes, ethicists are biased partisan. The concept of the non-partisan, independent expert is a convenient ideology-driven mythology, and anyone paying attention to what we have witnessed in our country, society, and culture over the past couple of decades has to admit that it is as believable as Santa Claus.

Let me add in closing that the arrogance and smug entitlement that radiates from Jackson’s “people who don’t know anything” is staggering, obnoxious, and ironic. She’s a Supreme Court Justice and apparently doesn’t know what the Constitution means…

Ethics Dunce, Unethical Quote of the Month, Incompetent Elected Official of the Month—Wow, What An Idiot!—Sen. Tammy Duckworth

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

If you can watch Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth in that CNN segment without your head exploding at the 3:43 mark, you are a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

After stating that the the so called “double-tap” bombing of alleged Venezuelan drug-smugglers was a war crime and murder, Duckworth is asked by Dana Bash, inadvertently practicing journalism, whether the Senator in fact knows what the hell she is ranting about, and gets the equivalent of “no,” “I just know what I’ve read online” and “I only know what I read in the newspapers.”

What Duckworth answered can be fairly translated as “I don’t really know anything the average channel-surfing short-order cook knows about this, and maybe less only I just tuned in to MSNBC, but I’m a Democrat, we have to criticize anything the Trump administration does, and I’ve got some talking points that my staffer was emailed from the DNC—maybe the same ones you were sent, Dana—and I’m just going from those.”

Duckworth was on CNN to discuss the incident as a purported expert: she’s built her entire political career by relying on her Army National Guard veteran status and losing her legs when her helicopter was hit by a missile during the first Iraq War. It’s an insult to viewers for her to go on the air and accuse the Department of War of “murder” without doing more than checking “what’s available in the media,” whatever that means in her case. I bet she got a summary of “what’s available in the media” and what she “knows” is double hearsay.

If I am asked on a radio show to give my opinion as an ethicist about, say, a law firm firing a member for a social media post denigrating Charlie Kirk and President Trump, I’d better have read the various analyses by my colleagues in the field, looked at the relevant ethics rules and legal ethics opinions, kno what the fired attorney wrote, and be ready to provide some trustworthy analysis other than “I only know what I read on ‘Above the Law.'”

This is the very epitome of political hackery. The Senator goes on CNN with no preparation at all, and spews a predetermined and predictable position because Trump Bad, while not even pretending to have any special insight into what occurred.

Unethical Quote of the Week: “Good Illegal Immigrant”Rahel Negassi

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she told him. “The only thing I’ve done is that I am Eritrean.”

—-Illegal Eritrean immigrant Rahel Negassito to her son, in the latest “Feel badly for illegal immigrants who finally get what they deserve” feature by the New York Times.

Rahel looks smug and defiant in the photo, as indeed she is. She did nothing wrong, but the (revoltingly) sympathetic story of her problems relocating to Canada from the U.S., where she has been residing illegally for 20 years, reports that she got into the country by

  • “…paying a smuggler who eventually got her to Britain, where she bought a fake British passport” to get her into the U.S.
  • …getting caught by ICE when the passport was recognized as fake
  • …being released after her application as a refugee was rejected, as a “paroled undocumented migrant.” 
  • ….living with her citizen sister for 20 years, counting on America’s slack and, for most of the period, law-ignoring immigration process to protect her.

Then as the story tells us, cruel Donald Trump was elected and set out to fulfill his campaign promise to clear as many illegal immigrants out of the U.S. as possible. A gift link is here.

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And This Is Supposed To Be A Rising Leader of the Democrat Party…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Unbelievable. Or at least it should be unbelievable that an elected member of Congress would behave like this. That the party such an indefensible hack belongs to—and who is regarded as a leader of???— wouldn’t collectively disclaim any responsibility for said hack and wear paper bags over their heads in penance. That…oh, never mind. Why do I bother?

Diving in to try to defend Virginia Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D) after the Epstein files revealed that she had been reading texts from the convicted sex-trafficker during a House hearing, Crockett got up and accused Mitt Romney, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Trump official Lee Zeldin among other Republicans officials of receiving political contributions from “someone named Jeffrey Epstein” as she claimed that Republicans were exacting a double standard—you know, like Democrats do routinely. But the Jeffrey Epstein she was tying to Romney et al. was a completely different person.

Was the ethically-inert Texas Congresswomen shooting off her mouth using false information because she is irresponsible and incompetent, or was she engaging in despicable deceit (that is, lying) to mislead the public? Who knows, and I don’t care: her declaration was a bright-line ethics breach and sanctionable in either case, as well as signature significance both for an untrustworthy member of Congress and a hyper-partisan asshole.

Ah, but this in-your-face blot on the U.S. Legislative Branch wasn’t done. When her false innuendos were raised in a CNN interview, Crockett exploded in double-talk to try to weasel out of her indefensible conduct:

“Listen, I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein. Just so that people understand, when you make a donation, your picture is not there. And because they decided to spring this on us in real time, I wanted the Republicans to think about what could potentially happen because I knew that they didn’t even try to go through the FEC,” this awful woman humina-humina-ed. “So my team, what they did is they Googled. And that is specifically why I said, ‘a Jeffrey Epstein’. Unlike Republicans, I at least don’t go out and just tell lies.”

Somebody pleas explain to Crockett what a lie is.

” Because it was not the same one, that’s fine,” she continued, spinning like Dorothy’s cyclone. “But when Lee Zeldin had something to say, all he had to say was it was a different Jeffrey Epstein. He admitted that he did receive donations from a Jeffrey Epstein. So at least I wasn’t trying to mislead people. Now, have I dug in to find out who this doctor is? I have not. So I will trust and take what he says is that it wasn’t that Jeffrey Epstein, but I was not attempting to mislead anybody. I literally had maybe 20 minutes before I had to do that debate.”

Right. Of course she was trying to mislead.

Kaitlin Collins responded (more equivocally than she should have): “Yeah, but people might see that say, well, you’re trying to make it sound like he took money from a literal sex offender.”

“But I literally did not know,” Crockett answered.

Jasmine Crockett is a walking, jive-talking insult to the nation.

Incompetent Elected Official and Ethics Dunce (But You Knew That, I Hope): Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene amazed Washington, D.C last night when she announced that she will resign from Congress after the first of the year, refusing to meet her obligations to the (dumb) voters who elected her and leaving them without a voice in Congress—an obnoxious and foolish voice, true, but still—for months.

As is often the case with the ethically-challenged, Taylor-Greene has managed to exceed the worst expectations of her. She has been a disgrace; now she is further disgracing herself and doing so with the vacant stare of the IQ-deficient and the phony smile of the bad liar. Like other recently departed creeps (George Santos, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Matt Gaetz) elected by exactly the kinds of voters the Founders were worried about when they decided to try the republic thingy, Taylor-Greene (henceforth just “Green” because I resent having to spend any more time typing her name that I have to) will leave Congress and our government a better place by leaving them.

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Unethical (And Ignorant) Quote of the Month: NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“I believe this is a city of international law.”

—Zohran Mamdani, on ABC News, saying that he would do everything in his power to enforce warrants from the International Criminal Court….which have no authority in the United States, just like the Court itself. He added,  “and being a city of international law means looking to uphold international law.”

Gee, do you think this guy is a globalist? The problem is, as usual, Mamdani doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Everything within his power is nothing. An international warrant has as much legal force in the U.S. as Confederate money or a Bazooka Joe comic.

New York City is not a city of international law, and the Communist mayor saying that he “thinks” it is means about as much as him saying, “I am the Lizard King!” or “I believe in the Tooth Fairy.” Cities cannot individually decide to enforce ICC warrants or international law; these are national policy decisions, and New York City as well as the states are bound by U.S. policy.

Oh yeah, this is going to work out real well.

The U.S. “Isn’t Ready” For a Woman President? Oh Shut Up, Michelle!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Michelle Obama‘s latest nonsense was too stupid for an “unethical quote” award and she’s never been elected to anything, so the “Incompetent Elected Official” designation is also beyond her grasp. If “Most Over-rated, Arrogant, Narcissistic First Lady in U.S. History” title was the prize, Michelle would lap the competition.

Here’s her whole, nauseating quote in response to actress Tracee Ellis Ross (Diana’s daughter) on whether there has been enough “room” created for a woman President, whatever the hell that means:

“As we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready. That’s why I’m like, don’t even look at me about running ‘cause you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman. We got a lot of growing up to do and there’s still … a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman and we saw it.”

What? Who admires this woman, and how do they justify it? To begin with, Hillary Clinton, a woman last I checked, won the popular vote in the 2016 election, meaning that our bigoted, juvenile population still voted for a female President despite her running one of the most inept and offensive campaigns in U.S. Presidential history…until the next woman ran. You can see that one with full babbling cretinism flying in the video above, where Kamala gloats about her “three dimensional chess” brilliant strategy that lost.

It isn’t that the U.S. isn’t ready for a female President: it isn’t ready for a phony, blithering, incompetent female President. Kamala lost by less than 2 percentage points despite being unable to put together a coherent argument, getting an unearned nomination, picking a complete boob as her running mate, and praising the record of the even bigger boob who picked her as VP, and who was the Worst President Ever.

“Harris lost because of sexism” is a despicable, dishonest and insulting excuse for her party’s defeat, and the fact that Michelle Obama would stoop to it gives us one more, like, incompetent and untrustworthy, like, female not to vote for as, like, President.

What an asshole.

Ethics Quiz of the Day: Mencken-Style Ad Hominem

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

At the Washiungton Free Beacon, columnist Andrew Stiles writes,

Jack Schlossberg, the sentient boat shoe and semi-employed TikTok user, is running for Congress in New York. It was bound to happen. The 32-year-old Democrat belongs to the Kennedy dynasty—that inexplicably beloved menagerie of goon-faced Habsburgian freaks, Nantucket douche bros, chronic alcoholics, and bloated sex pests. Schlossberg, a mentally deranged internet addict who cracks jokes about guzzling “Jew blood” and “male jizz,” has sought to inject the storied Kennedy brand with Gen Z flare.

That anti-Kennedy invective made me laugh out loud more than once. But is it fair commentary to mix in so much ad hominem invective in an opinion column if it is genuinely funny, at least to a substantial number of readers (or listeners)?

Famous (or infamous) journalist-pundit H.L. Mencken (1880-1956, above) excelled at this sort of thing; he may have even invented it. Here is part of his “obituary” for three-time (losing) Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan after he died shortly after he faced off against Clarence Darrow in Dayton, Tennessee in Tennessee v. Scopes aka, “Monkey Trial”:

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Unethical (and Stupid) Quote of the Month: Zohran Mamdani [First in a Long, Long Series…]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

“We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”

—Zohran Mamdani‘s marathon victory speech on Election Night, after the Democratic Socialist (that is, Communist) was elected as New York City’s mayor.

A commenter asked my opinion regarding Mamdani’s speech and I demurred, because it was standard commie tripe that I’ve read and heard from everyone from Lenin to Castro, and now this guy. He speaks well, and I’m always in favor of that as a key leadership skill. So did David Koresh. However, as I kept seeing that quote being published by the disgracefully uncritical mainstream media, my inner Popeye scratched to get out (“It’s all I can stands, ’cause I can’t stands no more!”) Who does he think he’s kidding?

Perhaps more importantly, what is the proper reaction to any American who wasn’t raised in a cave who doesn’t hear that insane claim and conclude, “Oh, brother! So much for that guy. He’s either lying, ignorant or a moron”? At very least it’s “RUN AWAY!”

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Ethical or Unethical Quote? President Trump on Nancy Pelosi:

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments


“Nancy Pelosi, the old and broken political hack who Impeached me twice and lost, is finally calling it ‘quits.’ She illegally made a fortune in the Stock Market, ripped off the American Public, and was a disaster for America. I’m glad to see the stench of Nancy Pelosi go!!!”

—President Donald Trump on Truth Social today, responding to the news that Ethics Villain Nancy Pelosi will not run for another term. (What do you really think, Mr. President?)

I was going to frame this as an Ethics Quiz, but thought better of it. Of course a U.S President shouldn’t stoop to this kind of rhetoric, even if everyone else is, about him. “Old and broken,” “hack” and “stench” cross the line into ad hominem, but then that’s Trump, unfortunately. The sentiment, however is deserved, which is why EA designated Pelosi as an Ethics Villain. She has been an unequivocally destructive force on the U.S. scene, from her irresponsible and unethical ushering of Obamacare through to passage without letting it be thoroughly vetted, to her ruinous impeachments (we no longer have a non-partisan impeachment option, thanks to her precedents) to her disgusting performance during Trump’s final State of the Union address in his last term, to the rigged “J-6” hearings. Trump is also correct about her insider trading, though she has the defense of “Everybody does it,” just not as effectively as she did.

Yes, Trump’s message is typical “tit-for-tat” after she called him a “vile creature” and the “worst thing on the face of the earth,” to which “hack” and “stench” seem mild insults in comparison. President still have an obligation to eschew such name-calling and “take the high road,” a principle that Trump either rejects or refuses to acknowledge.

On the other hand, as Captain Hook would never say, everything Trump said is true. So there’s that… Ann Althouse wrote that she was impressed that Trump didn’t slip any sexist rhetoric into his message.

And that, my friends, is called damning with faint praise.